Homeopathy
by kardamon
Summary: "A man can be brought back from the Locker only by the same thing that sent him there." (Come on, you know Jack would make a TERRIFIC Sleeping Beauty).


**Hi there! It seems that I have developed a tendency for writing for half-abandoned fandoms lately, so let me know if you're reading. It would help to make me feel less alone ;)**

 **About me: I'm not a native speaker so, you know.**

 **About the story: Sparrabeth. AWE. One shot. Not betaed. Angst with a happy ending.**

 **Disney owns them, though I'm pretty sure Jack would try to talk himself out of that.**

 **Enjoy.**

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Homeopathy

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The first breath she takes at World's End, after her head breaks the water surface and she gasps for air, reminds her of the time when Jack drew her our of the bay in Port Royal and ripped her corset open to free her lungs – so much, that she half expects to see his face when she opens her eyes, but once she blinks the water away and looks around, she's disappointed to be greeted with the view of an empty coast. There is no trace of the man they came here to find, nor the ship with the black sails that she hoped to spot docked to this lost piece of land.

Elizabeth swims toward the shore and pulls herself out of the water, all the while scanning her surroundings for something of use, but there seems to be little to look at, other than the sea, the empty beach and her fellow castaways. There are no trees in sight, nor any plants, for that matter, not to mention any signs of man-made structures. Even the sky is a dull, faded blue dome without a single cloud to catch Elizabeth's wandering eyes. She has to squint from the excess of light, as the sun is shining brightly, giving the white dunes the appearance of scorching hot, but there seems to be an underlying chill in the air, just barely masked with the heat of the rays.

One after one, the pirates make it to the shore, spluttering and shaking off like wet dogs, and they look at each other for clues as to what to do next. Their ship is gone and it becomes obvious that finding the Black Pearl might be their only chance to ever get away from this godforsaken place.

There is only one person among the group who looks completely in control and content with the current situation: Tia Dalma stands calmly in the middle of the chaos with her spine straight as a string, looking like a dark statue, and gazing around lazily with something akin to satisfaction.

Barbossa is the first one to grow impatient and he makes a move to start inside the land, calling his men to follow him.

"What's wrong?" Will asks when Tia Dalma's hand suddenly flies up in a clear halting command, and he shivers slightly when her gaze turns toward him, her raised fingers suddenly resembling a soft gesture one would use to hush a lover.

But it is Mister Gibbs who asks the burning question, the one question that everyone is silently wondering about ( _Or at least they should be_ , according to Elizabeth): „Where is Jack?"

Tia smiles as she looks at the old sailor, but since her smiles are rarely really reassuring (showing the hint of black teeth, and all), it does little to lift his worry.

"Witty Jack is closer than you think," she says.

Gibbs perks up.

"Well then," he says cheerfully. "Why don't we go and get him. JACK!" he shouts turning toward the land, before anyone can stop him. "JACK, WE'RE HERE!"

The sea-witch gives him a disapproving look.

"This' not dat easy," she says. "He won't hear you."

"What do we do, then?" Will asks impatiently. "And why can't we simply go and search for him?"

"There is a reason for why people don't come back from the Locker, and it's not just because few can find the way to the World's End," Tia explains.

"And what would that be?" Barbossa inquires, not even trying to hide his sour mood.

"A man can be brought back from the Locker only by the same thing that sent him there."

"But we don't have a Kraken!" Ragetti exclaims worriedly.

Tia Dalma's eyes shift, however, and Elisabeth suddenly feels cold, as the witch's gaze lands on her. The young woman has to fight a brief burst of dizziness and she's sure she must be very pale for a moment: because Tia's smile looks knowing, and just like that, Elizabeth realises why exactly the witch had been in favour of taking her along on the journey, from the beginning.

"We don't need a Kraken," Elizabeth says quietly and takes a step forward. Her lips feel so numb that she's surprised she can even form words. She looks up and locks her eyes with the other woman, seeking confirmation to her suspicion.

Tia just stares at her and then nods approvingly.

Without another word, Elizabeth walks past the crew and starts toward the nearest dune, avoiding eye-contact with the other pirates.

"Elizabeth?" Will calls hesitantly. "Where are you going?"

She stops, but doesn't look back.

"To find Jack," she says simply.

"But didn't Miss Tia just say we can't do that?" Pintel asks confusedly.

"You can't," Tia Dalma's voice cuts in. "She can."

"What is the meaning of this?" Barbossa grunts, sounding as if he wasn't sure if he should be indignant, or suspicious. "How come _she_ can go?

Elizabeth takes a deep breath and finally looks over her shoulder.

"Because I'm the one who killed Jack," she says tonelessly. The words taste like ash in her mouth and she feels like something is dying a little inside her when she utters them. It's the first time she says it out loud. Perhaps the first time she fully admitted it to herself.

She watches various reactions flash through the men's faces: a spark of interest in Barbossa's eyes, a hint of surprise and horror in Will's, utter befuddlement in Gibbs'... she quickly turns away at that, unable to witness the moment of comprehension on Jack's friend's face, the moment when Gibbs, good old Mister Gibbs who'd known her as a girl, would realise that she...

She quickens her pace and almost runs away, uphill, eager to disappear from the view behind the nearest dune. As soon as she does, she feels as if she stepped into another reality, where none of the people she left behind can reach her, and no of her worries about what anyone else might think of her seem important.

She pauses for a moment, once she reaches what she deems a safe distance, to catch her breath and to get her bearings. She looks up and almost freezes at the sight that presents itself before her: Tia Dalma wasn't kidding. The Black Pearl sits right in front of her, cutting a sharp silhouette in the middle of the salt desert.

Elizabeth sizes the distance, straightens her wet clothes and takes off in quick, decisive strides. The closer she gets to the ship, the heavier her legs feel, until she is dragging her feet, as if the air suddenly became too thick to move freely.

She stops and rises her head to look up at the steep, dark broadside looming over her.

"Jack!" she calls, but her voice comes out hesitant and not as loud as she intended. "Jack!" she calls again.

There is no response.

She walks around the ship, until she stops short noticing a thick rope hanging all the way down to the ground, that she is almost sure wasn't there the first time she looked. She eyes the object a little suspiciously and gives it a few experimental tugs before shrugging and starting to climb up vigorously. She still can not see or hear anyone. She hauls herself on board, catches her breath and takes the first look of the deck.

There is something off about the Black Pearl: she gives off an eerily, abandoned feeling with the dark sails hanging loosely and unmoving with no breeze to fill them. The deck is dry and there are none of the usual sounds that Elizabeth has come to expect on the ship, after spending so much time travelling by sea: no rustling or squeaking, no groaning of wood. The ship almost seems dead, and not just because there are no men running busily around and tending to their duties.

Elizabeth stands up slowly and looks around. Her stare lands almost immediately on the dark shape sprawled on deck near the main mast and her stomach drops when she realises that it's a human, lying face down. A man – and not just any man, but one that looks uncomfortably familiar, what with the tricorn hat resting next to the head with a mass of braids and dreadlocks, that it's...

"Jack..." she all but whispers, shocked by the sight. She feels the blood rushing to her head and her heart pounding, but she blinks and forces herself to get a grip. She shakes herself out of her astonishment and lets the jolt of adrenaline do its job as she regains her energy and closes the small distance between herself and the immobile figure in a few quick, long strides. "Jack!" she says louder, but receives no reaction. There is not even the smallest twitch to suggest that he heard her.

She notices that his right hand is wrapped loosely around the hilt of the drawn cutlass and finds it odd. Her eyes wander around searching for more clues and she stops dead in her tracks when she spots the closed iron cuffs attached to the mast. The sight triggers an unpleasant memory, but Jack's hands are free. Elizabeth looks back at him

"How did you get free?" she asks out loud, this time not even expecting an answer. She crouches next to his silent form, the guilt almost choking her, and tries again: "Jack?"

Is he asleep? Unconscious? He might be tricking her just to annoy her, but she isn't sure if he even has the ability to stay mum for so long. Jack is a geyser of energy and creativity, ceaselessly sprouting new, mad, yet often ingenious ideas, he is the shimmering flash of sunlight reflected on the deep blue of Caribbean sea, the drunk laughter bubbling up uncontrollably when you spin around dancing; he is pure vitality, the joy of life and freedom embodied. And yet, as he lies there unmoving, he looks strangely lifeless, as a boneless rag doll, his mattered hair bearing a curious resemblance to the dried seaweed. Elizabeth puts her hand on his arm to rouse him, and shivers, the ill feeling in the pit of her stomach only deepening, when there is completely no spark to be detected at the contact.

"Jack! Wake up!" she says, sharply, because this is not funny.

She shakes him and when that doesn't bring the desired effect, she pushes him roughly to turn him over. His body is limp and heavy, hard to move, and when she finally manages to flop him onto his back, his head lolls to the side. She pushes the hair obscuring his face off his eyes and suddenly, she flinches and backs away violently, blindly crawling away until her back hits the Pearl's wooden board. She stares at Jack horrified.

His skin is cold.

Only then she sees just how pale his usually tan cheeks are, that his eyes seem sunken under the closed lids, that his lips are sickly in colour, almost blue. To think of that, he almost doesn't look like himself at all.

Finally, _finally,_ she lets the thought that she'd done such a good work of avoiding all that time, much longer than just since seeing him like this, enter her mind. She had successfully kept it at bay during their journey to the World's End, her self-constructed, protective wall of denial thick and strong, because, well, they were coming to get him, and wasn't that enough of a reason to believe him being gone a temporary state? Before that, in Tia Dalma's hut, she'd been in shock and too numb to fully acknowledge the facts.

And truth be told, she hadn't fully believed that he was actually going to go down with the ship when she had shackled him to the mast, because... because... _because_ he was _Jack –_ a man with a devil's luck, the master of trickery, who had broken out of prisons, brigs and holding cells countless times, who had escaped the gallows even when the hangman's noose had been already wrapped around his neck, a man capable of stealing the most prized vessel of the Royal Navy to sail the Caribbean waters in broad daylight, right under the Commodor's nose.

Sure, she knew that she'd committed a treason and that he was going to be raving mad about that, but she can still remember the prickle of surprise when she watched the Kraken crushing the Black Pearl, as if that wasn't supposed to happen, and that she caught herself scanning the water with her eyes over and over, as if she expected to see him floating among the debris of the ship, ready to dazzle them all with yet another story of miraculous, spectacular escape. She could still taste him on her lips, swollen from his kiss, so how could he be gone? It didn't seam real.

But now, there is no getting around it:

He's not asleep. He's not unconscious. It's not a trick.

He's dead.

 _Jack is dead_.

Her hair stand on end.

God, what has she _done_?

She knew that he was dead. Of course she knew that, she was the cause for that! And yet, she didn't expect him to actually _be_ dead. She somehow thought that once they reached the Locker, they would find him waiting for them, trapped but alive, just out of the world's limits. And didn't Tia Dalma say that he wasn't dead? Though now, when Elizabeth thinks of that, she remembers that what Tia _really_ said, was that Jack wasn't _just_ dead.

And dead he certainly seems. If she still needed a proof for that, it would be enough to look closely at his chest and see that it isn't moving. Thankfully, there is no blood or any wounds visible, but she knows how he died all the same, and that it wasn't peaceful.

It takes her a long time before she is able to make her way back to him. At first, she just sits curled against the board and stares in shock at Jack's body, at his _corpse_ , too busy fighting nausea to do anything else. She curses herself inwardly, because she has no right to feel devastated after what she's done. _She_ made this happen. _She..._

 _I'm not sorry._

She squeezes her eyes shut. Did he believe her?

"Oh, Jack."

An absurd thought flashes trough her mind: that he will never trust a woman again. As if "woman" and "trust" could be more important words that "will" and "again" while talking about a dead man.

But there is still one thing she can latch her crashing hearth onto, a last resort source of hope she will cling to with all her might. Because there is a reason why she's here and that reason is not all bleak. Tia said that he could be brought back by the same thing that had been his downfall, and it just so seems that Elizabeth is qualified for the job. That's what gives her the strength to cautiously crawl back toward the body.

She looks at his closed eyelids and notices that the kohl is almost washed off by seawater. In that moment, she wants nothing more than for them to open and reveal the sparkling, black orbs hidden beneath them.

"Jack?" she says again, this time timidly. "Can you hear me? It's me, Elizabeth." She pauses for a moment, not sure how to proceed. "Wake up. It's time to wake up now, Jack. We came to rescue you. You're free to go."

She hesitantly brings her hand to touch him again. She shivers and has to fight the urge to pull away, because now it is so obvious to her that he is dead, even though his body has been preserved by the Locker's magic unchanged for months.

"Please, Jack," her voice falters. "Come back."

 _You came back._

She grits her teeth at the memory of her own treacherous words. She forces herself to continue, though she doesn't know what she is supposed to do and why it hasn't worked yet, if she is, in fact, the key to reviving him?

"Come on, Jack," she whispers, stroking his arm. "I know you're in here. Just take a deep breath and open your eyes."

She squeezes his shoulder and then gives him a little shake, but there is no reaction. How, in the world, is she supposed to rouse him?

"Jack!" she calls louder, switching tactics. "Jack, wake up! Jack!"

She shakes him harder, and then really hard when she gets no results.

"Jack! Open your eyes! Dammit, Jack, open your eyes, NOW! Wake up! JACK!"

She's shouting now, and then she slaps him, once, twice, because it's not working, it's not working, and what if...

She did this. She betrayed his trust and lured him into the trap, using the best, most heartfelt, noble part of him against him. He watched him struggle to make the hard choice and do the right thing, and then, when he did, she repaid him by feeding him to the monster. She told him he was a good man and killed him with a kiss. And now, now he is _dead_ , and it scares her to even begin trying to comprehend that, because imagining the world without captain Jack Sparrow in it is a surprisingly scary prospect. She knows it deep in her bones, that that world is dull and cold. It is a world drawn in clear, strict lines, separating possible from impossible, dreams from reality, reason and imagination, bravery and cowardice. It is a world of corsets, afternoon teas, of carefully calculated costs and profits, of safe, sensible choice – the world she'd been always meant to live in, and which absolutely hates.

Her vision blurs and – _oh, God, what is she doing_ – she curses, she yells, she hits him, as if he needed any more abuse from her, but she's at the end of the rope and she needs to do _something._

Finally, she lets out a scream of anguish, before collapsing against his chest. She has absolutely no idea what to do.

She wants to just curl against him, close her eyes and pretend that if she falls asleep, she can just wake up into the reality where none of this happened. She sniffles a little, exhausted, then takes a deep breath and blows out the air slowly to calm down. _Pirates don't cry_ , she thinks, blinking furiously.

Yes, she is a pirate. He was right about that. She's a pirate, because what she did, was not caused by noble motivation, no matter what she said. She didn't sacrifice Jack to save the crew or to serve any kind of greater good. She acted on a selfish impulse, killing the threat that he presented with himself, not just to her and Will's bodily safely, but also to her future – his potential to unravel her entire mindset, by questioning her ideals and desires. By chaining him to the ship, she drowned both the danger and the temptation in one clean sweep... only to realise, that by doing that, she'd become exactly the kind of person she'd been trying to avoid turning into. Even worse – because, if she was afraid that Jack was right and that they were, indeed, very much alike, then she stooped lower, since she had hard time believing that Jack would be capable of doing such a wicked thing himself. No, it was something that – perhaps – the kinds of Barbossa could do. But Jack? Jack with his laughing eyes and childlike spirit? Try as she might, she couldn't imagine him committing cold-blooded murder. So what has he ever done to her to deserve this?

"I'm sorry!" she bursts, looking at him almost accusatory. "I lied, all right? Is that what you need to hear? I've never been more sorry for anything in my life!"

But of course, he doesn't reply.

She covers her mouth to keep herself from making any more pitiful sounds and concentrates on steadying her breathing.

This is hopeless. And no amount of yelling or pleading seems to be making any difference. Her frustration can't cover the guilt, and the guilt can't mask the grief that threatens to crush her, if she lets it overtake her.

And what if Tia Dalma was wrong? What if Elizabeth can't bring him back? What if no one can?

It seems like a daft notion, anyway: to attempt healing someone by exposing them to the same damn thing that proved to be lethal to them. Why would adding any more poison be of help? She remembers that she once heard a doctor talking about a similar theory in medicine, but she can't recall any stories of the cases when the method actually worked.

Who came up with these ridiculous ideas?:

Fight fire with fire.

Like cures like.

 _Peas in a pod_ , Jack's voice snakes up unexpectedly into her mind and echoes in her memory. She shudders.

Jack would appreciate the daft part.

She looks down on him again, worriedly. She can't leave him like this. She owes him more than that. She has to figure it out.

Why didn't Tia Dalma tell her what to expect? And more importantly, what to do?

If he was here, _really was here_ , he would have, no doubt, already been half-way through some harebrained plan based on the longest shot one could possibly think of. Nevertheless, she is certain that it wouldn't take him more than few minutes to come up with an idea.

 _A man can be brought back from the Locker only by the same thing that sent him there._

… _by the same thing..._

A thought flickers on the edge of her consciousness, and she tries to catch it and meld into something useful. Maybe she is doing this all wrong? Maybe what all this really is about, is something much more... literal?

She licks her dry lips and hesitantly lifts her hand. She brushes her trembling fingertips against Jack's sharp cheekbones and then brings her other hand to his chest and leans over him. It suddenly strikes her, that underneath all that bizarre clothing style of his, Jack is a remarkably beautiful man. It's almost like he's using the dreadlocks, kohl and worthless beads carelessly mixed with gold and gems to distract the viewer from the fact that, had he cleaned up, shaved and dressed differently, he could have easily passed for a high-born aristocrat. Even the eccentricities would fit right in. She supposes that when you want to maintain a reputation of a fearsome pirate, "pretty" is not the first word you want people to describe you as, though. She smiles faintly at the thought, but then her smile falls when she remembers that in order to ever tease him about that, she needs to pull herself together and put her newest theory to a test. She sighs shakily, all of her anger evaporated.

"Now, Jack," she whispers, almost encouragingly, gently stroking his cheek, "you wouldn't miss out on being awake for this, would you? And just imagine the tale..." she trails off and then clears her throat.

 _You're rambling,_ she scolds herself inwardly. _Stop stalling._

She cups his face, and feels her heart rate picking up in fright of what she would do if it fails.

"Here is what is going to happen," she continues. "I'm going to do something, and you're going to wake up. Then, we'll break out of the Locker and go back to the land of the living. And it's going to work. Do you know why, Jack? Do you know how I know it will work?" her voice cracks a little and this time she doesn't fight it when her eyes get misty again. "Because you're _Captain Jack Sparrow."_

She inhales deeply and holds her breath, wavering for a split second, like a person standing on the edge of the cliff before jumping, not because she hesitates, but because it takes her a moment to gather her courage.

She instinctively knows that she has to clear her mind of everything else, that she can't think about Will or possible repercussions. For this to work, she has to mean it. There is no place for doubts or guilt. So she consciously shuts her fiancé out of her mind ( _pirate!_ ), pushing him so far away that he isn't even in the picture anymore. This has to be about Jack and about Jack only. For once, she allows herself to be consumed by the thoughts and feeling the pirate captain evokes so easily in her.

"Don't let me down, Jack," she whispers, before leaning down and closing her eyes. Her mouth presses to his, and she wishes that she could breathe the life back into him this way, along with the warmth. She stays still for a beat, before moving her lips and kissing him. A lone tear falls from her eyelashes onto his cheek.

Her eyes snap open, when many things happen at once. There is a breeze to be felt on her skin and she turns her head to look up as she hears the loud flap of the Pearl's sails filling in with the wind. The sound is powerful and joyful and it makes her heart skip a beat with hope, because surely, this is a good sign that Jack's beloved ship is coming to life. She thinks that she feels his chest raising with an inhale around the same time, but she can't be sure, because almost at the same moment, the deck jerks underneath her and the ship starts moving slowly, cutting the desert as easily, as if it was the smooth sea.

Elizabeth looks down at Jack, eagerly searching his face for any signs of change, but his eyes are still closed and he doesn't move. The paleness is gone, though, and when she moves her palm to rest flat on the centre of his chest, she thinks she detects the heartbeat, or is it just her imagination?

He doesn't taste like death, too, she realises. In fact, he tastes of...

 _How the hell did he pull that one off, after all this time?_ \- she thinks, amused for the first time since finding him.

Because, the taste to be found on his mouth is, faintly, yet unmistakably, _rum_.

She strokes the side of his face, the faint flicker of hope turning into a mad flame, and then she leans down once more, to whisper into his ear:

"I know you're faking."

When she pulls back, just enough to be able to look at his face, she sees that while he didn't open his eyes, the corner of his mouth curls up in a roguish smirk.

Relief and elation crash down on her, so strong, that she doesn't stop to think of what happens when he inevitably remembers where he is and what happened to him to get him there, or when they both get back to the rest of the crew. She feels as if the blood in her veins suddenly turned sparkling - dry red wine replaced with champagne - and the bubbles were going straight to her head. Which is why the next thing she does, recklessly and against all reason, is kissing him yet again.

This time, he doesn't play dead.

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 **Thank you for reading.**


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